Bloody Buron - Blitzkreig Commander AAR

They've been in storage long enough, these minis. It was high time they come out for a game. 

Ziggy and I pulled out Blitzkreig Commander on Saturday evening for a western front battle. It was an historical encounter between the Canadian 9th Brigade and elements of the 12th SS around Buron. I used the OOBs from the GHQ Micro Armor scenario which gives a wonderful breakdown of how things should be set up.

I ran the Canadians and Ziggy commanded the German attackers. 

The deployment was more or less historical, with a collection of various infantry and support weapons in the towns of Gruchy, Buron and Authie, and the 27th Armoured Regiment on the road between Buron and Authie. The Germans were in the eastern corner and had to capture two of those three towns.

It doesn't take long for my troops in Authie to come under fire. The 6lb gun is an early target and is suppressed and driven back.

And in no time, two Shermans are knocked out by Panzers crossing the fields.

German turn 1 ended predictably. Unfortunately I was not prepared for Candian turn 1 in which both the tank group and the Vanguard in Authie failed to activate. Quite literally everything other than dug-in infantry went into freak-out mode and sat still in a panic.

The Germans commenced turn two by just pounding my tanks on the road.

So now I was down to four tank stands in good order - three Sherman III and one Firefly. In Authie I had an M10, an unreliable 6lbr and an FO.

That small group did however give a good accounting of themselves and tore into one of the Panzer companies, getting a few back on the score sheet. The Vanguard in Authie again failed to activate!

A shot of the enemy.

By the end of turn three, my tanks were gone. I only had the command stand left in the center. The Wehrmacht troops prepared to assault Authie.

And here they come. My FO woke up and got one of the 105 batteries on the horn, raining down destruction on some of the incoming infantry. That put a bit of a damper on the SS party, but I feared it was too little, too late.

German tanks roll into Authie, my Vanguard was overrun without much fuss.

Ugh! Just look at that casualty pile!

German artillery finally wakes up and although Ziggy had to roll 4d6 for deviation, that turned out to be only 7 centimeters and the barrage still hit most of my defenders in Gruchy.

And in no time, the tank company which had overrun Authie was pushing through Gruchy.

For what really appears to be a very one-sided affair in favor of the Germans, I was actually one turn away from winning. Ziggy had to capture two of the three towns by the end of turn eight. He nabbed Gruchy at the start of turn 8. If I'd had held him up just a wee bit, victory could have been mine!

An enjoyable game for sure and one that I'd happily play again. Be well, and good gaming!

Rapier 2018

David, Mark and I made the two hour drive down to Jacksonville early Saturday morning for our first game convention of the year at Rapier. Proper pronunciation is discussed here at the 1:10 mark.

First on our agenda was Blood And Plunder. I've got minis but haven't played so I was eager to swash some buckles. The awsome crew from Firelock Games had a very nice table set up and made room for a couple extra players. The scenario was "The Defense of St. Croix, 1650," in which a horde of Spaniards attempts to assault the British settlement on St. Croix and pillage their rum.

I was placed on the British team, in command of a group of Freebooters. David, sitting next to me, was given command of some Spanish-loving locals on a canoe and Mike was made commander of the entire Spanish force, since he'd played before.

Those are my boys near the building there. David's Indians are in the nearest canoe. We were determined to turn this into Omaha beach for those invaders!

Some more of our English defenders.

Early on, the Spanish knocked down one of the wall sections of our town center will well-placed cannon-fire.

They're ashore! Blast 'em!

The shore is now teeming with Spaniards! The English in the village get into buildings, though we on the other side of the table were not sure why.

The ship, laden with more Spanish heads toward "my" beach where I've been holding off the Indians quite handily.

Then the game goes right down the shitter for the Spanish. Mike and company failed repeated attempts to snag the canoe in order to offload reinforcements. All their troops were stuck on the ship with no way off! The wind was mercilessly pushing against the sails which the crew couldn't figure out how to take down. Fate was really sticking it to the Spanish.

The last of the Mohicans were now in deep kimchi - I'd only lost one Freebooter, to their three losses and the riders and militia reinforcements were quickly inbound!

 

Some player pics...

Some Spanish players as well as the Firelock host. Droves of Spanish casualties are circled in yellow.

Mark (in orange), our English Commander, and the funny guy who sat to my right.

Mike standing on the right, quite irritable by this point and David sitting on the left. The guy in the center was the GM who I thought did a good job of wrangling 8 players.

Eventually, the Spanish snagged the canoe and loaded up eight sailors (ahem, yes, sailors) to storm the beach!

Arrrrgh!

The sailors were savaged by the horsemen and wiped out in record time. That sealed the victory for the English!

It was a great game for the English and rather frustrating for the Spanish. That's wargaming! I'm looking forward to playing at home.

After lunch, Mike ran a game of Blitzkreig Commander, an Eastern Front encounter set in the late Summer of 1943 I think, judging by the tanks we were pushing.

The table layout. Tom (a fellow who had signed up to play) and I took command of the Germans while Mike and Dave ran the Soviet defenders. We Germans were supposed to capture the village.

Tom gets a Panzer III battalion moving quickly. Unfortunately, our other tank group with Tigers failed to arrive and since it was to shield our panzergrenadiers, they too were delayed.

But they did eventually arrive and assumed firing positions. The armored infantry hid behind the hill until it was safer to come out.

Our Pz IIIs are really getting worked by the Zis-2s. Their 50mm guns are not ideal for return fire either. Our Panzer IV reinforcements whoe were to arrive in the upper right corner where the book and phone are repeatedly failed to arrive.

'Con Selfie

David says "The German StuGs are going to kill us RIGHT HERE!" The StuGs watching our left flank performed admirably.

In the end, we wrapped it after 6 full turns. I failed FIVE attempts to get our reinforcements onto the table, the Panzer IIIs got held up for too long against two lousy AT guns and, well, it just wasn't our day. Tom was a great teammate and I enjoyed playing with him. David and Mike got a bit of revenge for their loss earlier in the day.

We milled around a bit then Mike FORCED us to play a board game with him. We played Terraforming Mars, apparently the "It Game" these days. It was quite enjoyable, if lengthy.

Here's my corporation at the end of the proceedings:

All hail MIGHTY APHRODITE! My corporation was absolutely printing cash by the end and I won, followed by Mark, Mike and Dave.

Mark and I were essentially tied for the lead the entire game, but I had a boatload of forests and VP cards that were the difference-maker.


We all had a great time and are looking forward to the next meet up at Gnomecon!

Happy TANKSgiving - Two AARs

Over the weekend, Mike hosted his annual Tanks-giving gaming get-together and of course David and I had to make the 120 mile trek. On the menu this year were Dystopian Wars: Fleet Action and Blitzkrieg Commander.

DWFA was set up first. I'd brought two forces, French and Prussians, allies in the DW alternate history. Opposing them would be the British and Russians. Being a tank-themed event, it was a land battle with the minor exception of an Eclipse Company airship recruited by the Brits to pad their numbers.

So, managing the Brits and Russians were Mike, Alec, David and Lee. Ace and I split the French while James and Sarah led the Prussian contingent. I won't attempt a detailed battle report because most of what followed over the next three and a half hours was a series of insults and jeers as we all settled into our national stereotypes for a bit of roleplaying with our wargaming.

Our battlefield and two of our opponents.

Our patient host.

The French mobile airfield moves towards the hill in front of it, accompanied by many smaller tanks. It may be worth noting that one of my two artillery pieces, in the extreme foreground, had already been destroyed by the British arty.

At some point during turn 2...  Lee and Sarah showed up a bit late, but better late than never. After turn 1, the Anglo-Russian alliance were ahead 9-2. The Prussians had made a deep push on our right flank but appeared to be getting pulled into a Russian trap. The Brits in front of me and Ace were content to focus fire on my Danton landship.

Hey, it still has two hull points!

Sarah's small tanks get up the hill and begin flanking the Russian trap as the big Russian drill surfaces and disgorges its cargo of three more tanks.

Blimp's-eye view.

Big Stompy charges into the Russian line, destroying a couple of tanks. James knew the writing was on the wall for the big guy and wanted to get in a few extra kills before his big 'bot was destroyed.

I wanted to do the same with my Danton, except that Ace had parked a tank in front of it, restricting my movement.

 Mike's artillery then cut loose like a deuce on the ol' Bastille on wheels.

And it was no more...

Smiling faces of our opponents.

This was followed quickly by David putting paid to the Metzger. Two heavy hitters gone in the blink of an eye. To add insult to injury, when Ace rolled his airfield right up to the death zeppelin, he whiffed with every attack!

The final insult as Dave's drill smashes through a tiny stand of Prussian Walze tanks.

So, from that last picture you get a good sense of the class and graciousness of our opponents. I jest. It was a terrific game, marred by horrifying dice rolls on our side and good, if not great, dice rolling by our opponents. James was the only player on our side whose dice weren't completely miserable. Final score - 50 to 30 in favor of Mike, Alec, David and Lee. Congrats, and on to the next!

For BKC, we switched up teams a bit and a bit of a staffing change. Ace, Mark and Alec were on team Germany with me, while David, Mike, Matt and James for team Soviet Union. Though the game was technically set in 1944, we had a motley collection of equipment fielded and the battle amounted to a line-up and shoot. Given the feistiness of the players, it was just as well. Nothing too complex.

Most of the players... Matt has brain damage and can't control what his hands do.

My lovelies. I was to just hang onto the right flank as best I could with a mere seven Panzer IVs, two blobs of infantry and two PaK40s (in the wheatfield).

SU152s, T-34s and KVs across the map from me.

James' (behind the field) and David's (behind the buildings) tanks.

The battle began in earnest on our left flank with Ace and Alec pushing up the hill opposite David's 85s.

In the hour and eighteen minute-gap since the start of the game, I had passed exactly one command roll and my slackers had moved almost nowhere.

I was presented with some targets atop the central hill and began firing with my tanks. Finally, some fun!

Mark's Tiger IIs in our center, behind that pond, absolutely dominated the gumball alley in the middle - a good thing for us because I wasn't doing anything and about 2/3rds of our forces were on the left side cut off from us by the hilltop and woods.

Mike and Matt eventually got their tanks to the ridge in front of me and began hitting my position. My Mk IVs didn't stand up well to the challenge.

My two functional tanks hit the gas and re-deployed to the field to join with the anti tank guns that had actually been complete killing machines.

The far side of the table. Alec and Ace had made a significant push forward and made quite a mess.

By 10:00, with a two-hour ride home looking at us, we wrapped up the game. We tallied up kills and the Germans had won by a roughly 2:1 margin - quite shocking but I needed a win after the beating that was Dystopian Wars! I rather enjoyed BKC and am sure I'll be playing more of it in the future. David liked it as well. We've both purchased the 2nd edition rules PDF.

Another great Tanksgiving come and gone. James has a post on his blog too, here.  I'm psyched for Memorial Day now!